Building+an+identity

=Building an identity= by Trina Garcia

Purpose
This team building activity works well at the beginning of a long-term group project because it requires the team to learn about each others' interests, communicate quickly and cooperate to assemble a sculpture made of random objects with very little time or planning.

Time Required
Five-minutes for introduction of activity, and 40-minutes for group to design and complete construction of sculpture.

Number of Participants
Three to five students in each group.

Supplies Needed
Each group needs scratch paper and double-faced tape or other temporary adhesive. Facilitator provides mat boards or cardboard pieces for base of sculptures and a box of random, lightweight objects that can be attached to each other securely using the double face tape. Objects that can be used include toothpicks, measuring cups, nuts and bolts, construction paper, small toys pieces, chopsticks, popsicle sticks, etc.

Preparation
Cut mat board or cardboard for sculpture bases and collect the random objects. Cleaning out desk drawers and toy boxes are a great place to start. More objects for art can be gathered and donated by family, friends and students.

Introduction
Groups, cultures and societies have identities based on what members have in common. Today your group will quickly learn what you have in common and then using random objects the group will build a sculpture that represent your identity as a group, rather than as individuals. The sculpture can be made of a group of objects and symbols that represent literally what your group has in common, for example a group of boaters could use milk cartons, popsicle sticks, string and construction paper to make a boat tied to a dock. Or a group of musicians can be more abstract and cut a musical clef from cardboard and write the lyrics of their favorite "class appropriate songs" on the cleff and attach itf to a cardboard base and then use construction paper to make the audience grooving to the tunes.

Process

 * Facilitator will take about 5-minutes to introduce the activity.
 * Groups will use five-minutes and scratch paper to learn and list what they have in common such as age, hobbies, sports, neighborhood, families, favorite books, movies, music or politicians.
 * Groups have about 30 minutes to pick up supplies and construct their sculpture. Each group will pick up a roll of two-sided tape or other temporary adhesive and a base for their sculpture. Also each team member will choose an object from the box they think could become part of the sculpture. After everyone has selected an object the group decides how to construct their sculpture. They can pick up more objects if necessary.
 * Alternately each group could be give a ziplock bag with random objects in it to use for constructing their sculpture, and could then trade/barter with other groups. Of course trading can create chaos and would add to the time necessary for the activity.
 * Have groups do a gallery tour to see what others created.

Debrief
How did your group choose a leader, or was everyone equal? How did you decide who was the best artist? best engineer? best at keeping everyone focused on the task? Now that you know more about every group member's strengths, how can you use the information to form a group that shares the work fairly and uses each team member's talents to create the best product?

Credits
This is based on an assemblage activity from Anna O'Cain's "Women in 20th Century Art" at CSU San Marcos. However it's been over 10 years and the activity might have had a totally different purpose, but I do remember the instructor was Anna and we all had a lot of laughs as our sculptures fell apart or tipped over.